Political Sophisms

Published:Vperyod,No. 18, May 18 (5), 1905.

      Published according to the text inVperyod.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Foreign Languages Publishing House,1962,

      Moscow,Volume 8,

      pages425-432.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Isidor LaskerTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

TheRussian revolution has only just begun, but already all the features
peculiar to political revolutions of the bourgeoisie stand clearly revealed. The
lower classes fight, the upper reap the benefit of it. All the incredible hard
ships of the revolutionary struggle have fallen upon the proletariat, as a
class, and on a few young intellectuals from among the bourgeoisie. Nine-tenths
of all the liberties that have been partially won (rather, scant strips of
liberty) go to the upper classes of society, to those who do not work. Despite
the law, there is now incomparably greater freedom of speech, assembly, and the
press in Russia than there was ten years, one year, ago; but only the bourgeois
newspapers and the “liberal” meetings benefit thereby to any extent
worth mentioning. In their powerful urge towards freedom the workers keep
forcing their way into new realms hitherto thought inaccessible to them; but
this infiltration of the proletarian element proves, rather than refutes, our
point. Active participation in the political struggle is in inverse ratio to the
active appropriation of its fruits. The more advantageous the status of a given
class in the socio-economic structure is, the more “advantageous”
is the relation between the legal and the illegal movement (i.e., between what
is permitted by law and what is contrary to the law). The movement of the
liberal bourgeoisie, especially since January 9, has spread so widely in formstoleratedby the law that the illegal liberal movement has begun to
dwindle be fore our very eyes with amazing rapidity. The movement of the working
class,despiteits assumptions, in one of its crucial phases, of an
ultra-“legal” form (the presentation of a petition to the tsar by the
working people of St. Petersburg),finds itself completely outlawed and subject to harsh military reprisals. The
      movement of the working class has grown in comparably wider, but the
      relation between the legal and the illegal elements has hardly changed in
      favour of the former.

Whencethis difference? Because the whole social and economic structure of
Russia yields most fruit to those who work the least. Under capitalism that
cannot be otherwise. It is the law of capital, which rules the political as well
as the economic life. The movement of the lower classes raises a revolutionary
force; it raises a mass of people, who, for one thing, are capable of tearing
down the whole rotten structure, and, for another, are not attached to that
structure by any special features of their position and would gladly tear it
down. What is more, even though they are not fully conscious of their
aims. these masses are nonetheless able and prone to tear the structure down,
because their position is desperate, since constant oppression drives them to
take the revolutionary way, and they have nothing to lose but their chains. This
popular force, the proletariat, looms formidable before the lords of the rotten
structure because there is some thing in the very position of the proletariat
that is a menace to all exploiters. For that reason, any movement of the
proletariat, however small, however modest it may be at the start, however
slight its occasion, inevitably threatens to outgrow its immediate aims and to
develop into a force irreconcilable to theentireold order and
destructive of it.

Themovement of the proletariat, by reason of the essential peculiarities of
the position of this class under capitalism, has a marked tendency to develop
into a desperateall-outstruggle, a struggle for complete victory over
all the dark forces of exploitation and oppression. The movement of the liberal
bourgeoisie, on the contrary, and for the same reasons (i.e., by virtue of the
essential peculiarities of the bourgeoisie’s position), has a tendency towards
compromise instead of struggle, towards opportunism instead of radicalism,
towards modest calculation of the likeliest and most possible immediate gains
instead of a “tactless”, bold, and determined bid for complete
victory. He who puts up a real fight will naturally goall out;he who
prefers compromise to struggle will naturally point out beforehand what
“morsels” he would be inclined, at best, to content himselfwith (at worst, he would be content even with no struggle at all, i.e., he would
make a lasting peace with the masters of the old world).

Itis therefore quite natural for Social-Democracy, as the party of the
revolutionary proletariat, to be so concerned for itsprogramme, to
take such pains to establish well in advance its ultimate aim, the complete
emancipation of the working people, and jealously to guard this aim against any
attempts to whittle it down. For the same reasons Social-Democracy is so
dogmatically strict and firmly doctrinaire in keeping its ultimate goal clear of
all minor, immediate economic and political aims. He who goesall out,
who fights for complete victory, must alert himself to the danger of having his
hands tied by minor gains, of being led astray and made to forget that which is
still comparatively remote, but without which all minor gains are hollow
vanities. Such concern for the programme and the ever critical attitude towards
small and gradual improvements are incomprehensible and foreign to a party of
the bourgeoisie, however great its love for freedom and the people may be.

Wewere launched upon these reflections by the “Draft of a Russian
Constitution”, recently published byOsvobozhdeniyeunder the
title “The Fundamental State Law of the Russian Empire”. This draft,
known in Russia for some time, has now been issued with annotations and an
explanatory comment as “the only complete, definitive edition revised by
the authors themselves”. It appears that this draft originates, not with
theOsvobozhdeniyeLeague, but rather with a private group belonging to
the League. Thus, we see here once again the dread of a clear, definite, and
straightforward programme, which is typical of liberalism. The liberal party
in Russia possesses immeasurably greater funds and publication capacities, and
immeasurably greater freedom of movement on legal ground than does
Social-Democracy; yet, with regard to programmatic definiteness, it
falls strikingly behind Social-Democracy. The liberals fight shy of
programmes; they prefer
various contradictory statements in their newspaper (e.g., on the question of
universal suffrage), or the “drafts” of private groups, which do
not in any way commit the party as a whole (or the wholeOsvobozhdeniyeLeague). This is no accident, of course. It is
the inevitableresult of the bourgeoisie’s social position, as a class, in modern
      society—a class caught between the autocracy and the proletariat and
      rent into factions over petty differences in interests. Political
      sophisms follow naturally from such a situation.

Weshould like to draw the reader’s attention to one such sophism. The main
features ofOsvobozhdeniye’sdraft constitution are well known: the
monarchy is retained—the question of the republic is not even
discussed (apparently the“Realpolitiker”of the bourgeoisie do not consider this
question important enough!); abicameralparliamentary system is to be
set up with universal,direct, and equal suffrage by secret ballot for
the Lower House, and withtwo-stageelections for the Upper. The
members of the

Up per Houseare to be elected by the Zemstvo Assemblies and the
municipal councils. There is no need to dwell on the details of this draft. The
interest lies in its general conception and its advocacy on grounds of
principle.

Ourgenerous-spirited liberals want to share the state power as evenly and
“fairly” as possible among three forces:

the monarch, the Upper House (the Zemstvo House), and the Lower House (the House
of People’s Representatives), that is, the autocratic bureaucracy, the
bourgeoisie, and the “people” (the proletariat, the peasantry, and
the petty bourgeoisie at large). The liberal publicists, in their heart of
hearts, want the strife between these contending forces and the various
combinations of these forces to be superseded by a “fair” concord of
unity ... on paper! The thing is to have a gradual, balanced development, to
justify universal suffrage from the point of view of the conservatives
(Mr. Struve’s preface to this draft); a real guarantee for the interests of the
ruling classes (i.e., real conservatism) is to be created in the form of the
monarchy and the Upper House; and this supposedly

cunning,butactually very
naive, construction is to be clothed in highflown sophisms. The Russian
proletariat will have to deal with liberal sophisms for a long time to come. It
is time we examined them more closely.

Theliberals begin their defence of the bicameral system by analysing
anticipated objections to it. Characteristically, these objections are borrowed
entirely from the usualfont of liberal-Narodnik ideas, which are being widely promulgated by our legal
press. The nature of Russian society, it is claimed, is “profoundly
democratic” and there is nothing in Russia like an upper class that owes
its strength to its political services, to wealth, etc., for our nobility has
been a class of servants of the government without “political
ambitions”, besides which its material power has been
“sapped”. From the point of view of a Social-Democrat it is absurd
to take this Narodnik phrase-mongering seriously; there is not a word of truth
in it. The political privileges enjoyed by the nobility in Russia are only too
well known; the nobility’s strength is plainly evident in the tendencies of the
conservative and moderate, or Shipov, party; its material power is
“sapped” only by the bourgeoisie, with which the nobility is
merging, and which does not in the least prevent it from amassing immense
wealth that enables it to rob tens of millions of toilers. The class-conscious
workers should have no illusions on this score. Narodnik phrase-mongering on the
insignificance of the Russian nobility merely serves the liberals as a means of
sugaring the pill of future constitutional privileges of the nobility. This
liberal logic is psychologically inevitable; our nobility must be depicted as
negligible in order that its privileges may seem only a negligible departure
from democracy.

Withthe bourgeoisie occupying a position between the hammer and the anvil,
idealistic phrases, too, are psychologically inevitable, phrases which our
liberals in general and their pet philosophers in particular are now mouthing
with such bad taste. “As far as the Russian liberation movement is
concerned,” we read in the explanatory comment, “democracy is not only a
fact but a moral and political postulate. It places moral justification for any
social form above its historical justification....” Not a bad example of the
turgid meaningless phraseology with which our liberals “justify”
their approach towards betrayal of democracy! They complain of the“obloquy[?] that is heaped upon the Russian liberal party by
representatives of the more extreme elements, who allege that this party seeks
to put a bourgeois-aristocratic autocracy in the place of the bureaucratic
autocracy”— yet our liberals would have the only truly democratic
institution in their scheme, the House of People’sRepresentatives, share power with both the monarchy and the Upper, Zemstvo,
      House!

Their“ethical” and “moral-political” arguments for an
Upper House are these. In the first place, “a bicameral system exists
everywhere in Europe, except in Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Luxemburg....” Not
everywhere, then, if there are exceptions? Besides, what sort of argument is
this: there are a great many anti-democratic bodies in Europe, therefore
... therefore they should be copied by our “profoundly democratic”
liberals? The second argument: “It is dangerous to concentrate the
legislative power in a single body”; another body should be set up to
rectify mistakes and “too hasty” decisions...; “should Russia
be bolder than Europe?” Thus, Russian liberalism does not want to be bolder than
European liberalism, which hasknowinglylost its progressive character
through fear of the proletariat! Fine leaders of the “liberation”
movement, indeed! Not a single serious step towards freedom has been made in
Russia; yet the liberals already fear “hastiness”. Cannot the same
arguments be used, gentlemen, to justify the renunciation of universal suffrage
as well?

Athird argument: “One of the principal dangers to any political system in
Russia is that it may be converted into a regime of Jacobin centralisation.” How
dreadful! The liberal opportunists evidently do not mind borrowing ammunition
against lower-class democracy from. the Social-Democratic opportunists, the
new-Iskrists. The ridiculous bogy of “Jacobinism” dragged out by
Axelrod, Martynov & Co. is doing theOsvobozhdeniyecamp a good
turn. But, gentle men, if you really feared the excesses of centralism (and not
the “excesses” of consistent democracy), why should youlimituniversal suffrage in elections of the local—Zemstvo and
municipal—bodies, as you are doing? Article 68 of your draft stipulates
that “every person having the right to vote in the elections to the House
of People’s Representatives has equally the right to vote in the local
elections,if he has been domiciled in the given uyezd or town for
a definite period of time, such restricted period not to exceed one
year.”This
article introduces aqualification, thereby virtually making the
franchisenon-universal;for everyone understands that it is the
workers, farm-hands, and day-labourerswho are mostly obliged to move from town to town and from district to
district without a permanent place of residence. Capital drives masses of
workers from one end of the country to the other, giving them no chance to claim
permanent residence; andbecause of thatthe working class is to
forfeit a part of its political rights!

Thislimitation of universal suffrage is to apply to the very bodies, rural and
municipal, that elect the Upper, Zemstvo, House. To combat alleged excesses of
Jacobin centralism, adoubledeparture is made from democracy: first,universalsuffrage is to be limited by the residence qualification;
secondly, the principle ofdirectsuffrage is to be annulled by the
introduction of two-stage elections! Can anything be clearer than that the bogy
of Jacobinism only serves the purpose of every type of opportunists?

Smallwonder, indeed, that Mr. Struve expressed his sympathy in principle with
the Social-Democratic Girondists—-the new-Iskrists, that he sang the
praises of Martynov, the famous champion of anti-“Jacobinism”. The Social-Democratic enemies of Jacobinism have paved the way for the liberal
bourgeois.

Thecontention of theOsvobozhdeniyecrowd that the Upper House,
elected by the Zemstvo bodies, can best ex press “the principle of
decentralisation”, the “multiformity of the different parts of
Russia”, is sheer nonsense. Decentralisation cannot be expressed by
limitation of the universal basis of the elections; multiformity cannot be
expressed by limitation of the principle of direct elections. This is not the
crux of the matter, which theOsvobozhdeniyepeople are trying to
obscure. The real point is that by their system the Upper House is bound to
becomepre-eminentlyand chiefly an organ of the nobility and the
bourgeoisie, since it is the proletariat that is largely affected by the
residence qualification and the two-stage system of elections. The point, is so
plain to anyone at all familiar with political questions that the authors of
the draft anticipate this inevitable objection.

“Somepeople will say,” we read in the explanatory comment, “that no
matter how the elections are organised, thebig landowners and the employer
classstand a chance of keeping control in the local community. We think
[what a profoundly democratic thought!] that this is just anothercase of exaggerated fear of the ’bourgeois element’. There is nothing

unfair j!] inthe landowning and manufacturing classes obtaining an adequate [1]
      chance of representing their interests [universal suffrage is not enough
      for the bourgeois

element! I,so long as other social groups are grant ed
      wide opportunities for representation. Only privileges are morally
      objectionable and politically dangerous....”

Letthe workers make a careful note of this “liberal” morality. It
presumes to boast of democracy, to condemn “privileges”, while at
the same timejustifyingresidence qualification, two-stage elections,
and the monarchy.... The monarchy, evidently, is not a “privilege”,
or perhaps it is a morally unobjectionable and politically non-dangerous
privilege!

Oursociety leaders of the “liberation” movement have started off
well! Even in their most ambitious projects. which do not in the least commit
their party as a whole, they devise advance apologies for reaction, defending
the privileges of the bourgeoisie with sophistic attempts to prove that
privileges are not privileges. Even in their publishing activities that least
depend on material calculations and are least affected by immediate political
aims, they contrive to prostitute the idea of democracy and slander the most
consistent of all bourgeois democrats—the Jacobins of the Great French
Revolution. And what are we to expect further? What are the practical
politicians of the liberal bourgeoisie, responsible to their party, going to
say, if the most idealistic of the liberals are already now preparing the
theoretical ground for betrayal? If the boldest ambitions of the extreme Left
Wing of theOsvobozhdeniyecamp do not go beyond a monarchy with a
bicameral parliament, if that is the onlypricethe ideologues of
liberalismdemand, then on what terms will liberalism’s businessmenstrike a bargain?

Thepolitical sophisms of liberalism offer the revolutionary proletariat
slight, yet valuable, documentation as to the real class nature of even the most
advanced elements of
the bourgeoisie.